This comes up from time to time as a counter argument to opt-out, and it makes me sick.
That ER doc you're talking about has spent their entire life working their fingers to the bone to help others. They are beyond committed and passionate about saving every possible life, even when it's detrimental to their own health.
To suggest they might not work hard to save someone right in front of them is insulting and horrible.
> To suggest they might not work hard to save someone right in front of them is insulting and horrible.
Counter-argument in the form of a question: does one life matter as much as (or more than) three or four that might be saved from that one life's organs? Especially if the one that's clinging to life might've ended up in that position as a consequence of their own actions, such as by way of an at-fault car crash?
I'd argue that the doctor's responsibility is to save any life presented to them regardless of how, but I won't put it past anyone to do the calculus above.
(this may appear to meet the textbook definition of a strawman argument, but I'd venture that this is--by virtue of how many organs can come from one person--a real enough possibility to warrant consideration)
Coming back to the calculus performed: if the odds of survival are much less than certain, what's the point at which a doctor, thinking algorithmically rather than with a mission, decides that there's more value in lives saved from a patient's organs than in trying to save the primary patient and potentially losing organ viability (or just time) if the mission fails?
I'm pretty certain the vast majority of doctors will obey the Hippocratic Oath as intended. I'm also somewhat certain that a minority subset of doctors will interpret the Oath differently than others, and this is the most impossible assertion to falsify because very few surgeons/teams will admit this short of a certifiably anonymous survey... if that.
Orrrrrr maybe just like every other industry we should acknowledge that there are bad actors and/or people who make questionable judgments about the best way to 'help others'?
Look at even the mental health profession, where in all cases Doctors are supposed to be 'helping others'. And yet I know that I could never see my housemate's doctor and get the same set of meds that I get seeing mine.
We both have very similar conditions, and yet the life outcomes are vastly different in that change in meds. Yet housemate's doc insists they are doing the 'morally right' thing.
Edit: FWIW, my interactions with Doctors and Pre-med students outside of the actual medical profesison and the stories I've heard do nothing to help my assessment.
While I'm an organ donor and don't take the supposed risks of that seriously, I don't think your argument is a good one. Not all surgeons are wonderful people. They're only human after all.
A simple web search for "surgeon charged with" will reveal that sometimes surgeons do things they shouldn't, just like members of any other profession. How do you square "They are beyond committed and passionate" with surgeons who rape their patients, or knowingly perform unnecessary surgeries out of greed? You can't.
That ER doc you're talking about has spent their entire life working their fingers to the bone to help others. They are beyond committed and passionate about saving every possible life, even when it's detrimental to their own health.
To suggest they might not work hard to save someone right in front of them is insulting and horrible.